If I Could Gift Myself One Bookish Trip, This Would Be It

Theresa Wilson
11 minutes ago
18 min read

There are some trips you plan with a spreadsheet. This is not one of them.

Dear Future Me,

I hope you've finally done it.

I hope you've boarded the plane with a well-loved historical romance tucked into your carry-on, a passport ready for a new collection of stamps, and just enough empty space in your suitcase to bring a few new books home.

I hope you've stood beside a Scottish loch and realized that the view in front of you is somehow even more beautiful than the one you've imagined from the pages of a book.

I hope you've wandered through castle ruins without worrying about how many attractions you still have left to see that day. I hope you've found the little independent bookshops tucked away on quiet streets, stopped for tea when you felt like it, and spent an entire afternoon reading in a café simply because there was nowhere else you needed to be.

And I hope you stayed somewhere made of old stone, with uneven floors, creaky stairs, and windows looking out over the countryside.

Mostly, I hope you remembered to slow down.

Love,

Me, still dreaming.

Birthdays have a funny way of making me think about the future.

Maybe it's the candles, or the inevitable moment when you realize another year has somehow disappeared while you weren't looking. Maybe it's simply having a built-in excuse to ask yourself what you still want to see, experience, learn, and become.

For me, those dreams rarely take the shape of things I want to own.

They tend to look more like places I want to go.

And if I could give myself one truly unforgettable birthday gift, I don't think I'd choose something that could be wrapped in paper. I'd choose a plane ticket and a long stretch of time with nowhere I absolutely had to be.

I'd choose a bookish trip through Ireland, Scotland, and the UK.

Maybe I'd eventually make it a much larger journey through Europe, because apparently asking me to choose just one country is a very effective way to create an impossible decision. But if I'm imagining the trip I've carried around in my head for years, this is where it begins.

And it wouldn't be the kind of trip where I wake up every morning at 6 a.m., rush through breakfast, spend ten minutes taking a photo at a famous landmark, and hurry off to the next item on an itinerary.

Absolutely not.

I want the opposite.

I want the kind of trip where the itinerary has room to breathe.

I want to wake up in a little stone cottage and not immediately know exactly what the day will look like. I want to wander through a village because something about the street caught my attention. I want to find a bookstore I didn't know existed. I want to sit in a café with a book and realize I've been there for two hours.

I want castles and countryside and old buildings and winding roads.

But more than anything, I want the feeling of stepping into a story.

The Trip I've Been Reading About Without Realizing It

I think part of the reason this particular dream has followed me for so long is that I've spent years reading my way toward it.

Historical romance has always been one of my favourite genres, and authors like Lynsay Sands have given me plenty of stories filled with old castles, complicated histories, beautiful settings, and characters whose lives feel worlds away from my own.

Then there are the stories that have made the English countryside feel almost familiar before I've ever visited it. Jane Austen, for example, has a way of making houses, estates, gardens, villages, and drawing rooms feel like characters in their own right.

And then there's Bridgerton, with its grand estates, gorgeous gardens, elaborate balls, and heightened version of Regency-era society. It isn't a travel documentary—and I certainly wouldn't expect a real trip to look like a television series—but there's something about those settings that makes you want to see the inspiration behind them.

That's what books and stories have done for me.

They've given me places to imagine.

A castle isn't just a castle anymore. It's a place where I can picture another century unfolding.

A quiet countryside road isn't just a road. It's somewhere I can imagine walking with a book tucked into my bag, stopping whenever the scenery becomes too beautiful to rush past.

A little café isn't simply somewhere to grab lunch. In my imagination, it's somewhere I'd sit by the window with a cup of tea, a pastry on the table, and a novel open in front of me while rain taps against the glass.

I don't necessarily want to recreate a particular story.

I want to experience the feeling those stories have given me.

And maybe that's what makes this dream trip so appealing.

It wouldn't be about pretending I'm a character in a historical romance.

It would be about finally visiting some of the places and landscapes that have made me curious enough to dream in the first place.

Scotland: The Part of the Dream I Can See Most Clearly

If there's one part of this trip that I can picture more clearly than anything else, it's Scotland.

Maybe that's because Scotland feels like the place where all the pieces of this daydream come together: castles, dramatic landscapes, old stone buildings, winding roads, misty mornings, and the kind of countryside that looks like it was designed specifically for a historical romance cover.

Ruined stone castle by a calm lake, reflected in water, with green mountains and golden sunlight behind it.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I want a loch.

Not necessarily the most famous loch. Not the one with the biggest crowds or the most impressive viewpoint. Honestly, I'd probably prefer the opposite.

I want to find somewhere quiet.

I want to sit beside the water with a book in my hands and nowhere I need to be for the next few hours. Maybe the weather is a little grey. Maybe there's a bit of mist hanging over the hills. Maybe it's one of those stereotypically Scottish days where you can't quite decide if it's going to rain, so you've brought a jacket just in case.

And I would be completely fine with that.

I'd read a few chapters. I'd take photographs. I'd probably close the book every once in a while just to look around and remind myself that I'm actually there.

Because I think that would be one of those moments where the reality of the trip finally catches up with the dream.

For years, Scotland has been somewhere I've imagined through books, photographs, television, and other people's travels. But there's a difference between seeing a beautiful landscape on a screen and actually standing in front of it.

I'd want to take my time with that moment.

No rushing off because there's another attraction on the schedule.

No checking my watch because I'm supposed to be somewhere else in forty-five minutes.

Just me, a book, a loch, and a view I've probably taken far too many photographs of.

And Then There Would Be the Cottage

If the loch is the moment I can picture most clearly, the stone cottage is probably the place I'd want to call home for a little while.

Give me an old stone cottage in the Scottish countryside over a five-star hotel any day.

I don't need a luxury suite.

I want character.

I want stone walls and old windows. I want a kitchen that looks like it has hosted hundreds of breakfasts before I arrived. I want a fireplace if I can have one. I want a little reading corner where I can leave my book without worrying about keeping everything perfectly tidy.

I want to wake up in the morning and have no idea what time it is because there is absolutely no reason to rush.

Maybe I'd make coffee, open the curtains, and see nothing but countryside.

Maybe I'd spend the morning reading before heading out for the day.

Maybe I'd come back in the afternoon after wandering around and realize that I have absolutely no desire to go anywhere else.

And that would be okay too.

I think that's one of the biggest differences between the trips I dream about and the way travel is sometimes presented online.

I'm not interested in squeezing twenty experiences into four days just so I can say I did them.

I don't want to come home needing another vacation to recover from the vacation.

I want time to actually be somewhere.

Castles Without the Checklist

Of course, there would have to be castles.

I mean, if I'm going to spend my birthday dreaming about Scotland, I'm not going to pretend I don't want to wander through castles.

But even here, I don't want to turn the trip into a checklist.

I don't need to visit every castle I've ever seen on a travel list.

Steam train crosses a curving stone viaduct over green Highland hills, with a lake, mountains, and cloudy sky.

I'd rather find a few that genuinely capture my imagination and give myself time to explore them properly.

I want to walk through old rooms and wonder about the people who once lived there.

I want to stand in courtyards and imagine what they looked like hundreds of years ago.

I want to climb worn stone steps and think about how many people have walked them before me.

And yes, I absolutely want the dramatic photographs.

But I also want the quiet moments that don't make it onto Instagram.

The little details.

The uneven stone beneath my feet.

The view from a window.

The sound of the wind.

The feeling of standing somewhere that existed long before I did and will probably still be standing long after I've gone home.

Maybe that's another reason historical romance has always appealed to me.

It makes history feel personal.

It turns grand estates and castles into places where people lived ordinary lives alongside extraordinary ones. They ate meals, argued, fell in love, made mistakes, worried about things that seemed enormous at the time, and eventually became part of the history that fascinates us now.

Standing in those places wouldn't make me part of their story.

But it might make those stories feel a little more real.

A Trip With Room for the Unexpected

The funny thing about imagining this trip is that I don't actually want to know exactly how it unfolds.

That's probably the least travel-planner thing I could say, especially considering how much I love having an idea of where I'm going.

But there's a difference between knowing where you're headed and knowing exactly what you're going to do every hour you're there.

I want room for the unexpected.

Maybe I'd discover a tiny bookshop because I took a wrong turn.

Maybe I'd find a café that wasn't in any guidebook and end up spending half the afternoon there.

Maybe I'd drive past a landscape that makes me pull over simply because I can't imagine continuing without taking a photograph.

Maybe it would rain on the one day I planned to be outside all day.

Maybe I'd change my plans completely.

And honestly?

That sounds perfect.

Because if the whole point of this trip is to feel like I've stepped into a story, then I don't want to know every page before I turn it.

I want to leave a little room for the story to surprise me.

Ireland: Green Countryside and Places You Didn't Plan to Find

If Scotland is the part of this trip that feels the most like stepping into a historical romance, Ireland feels like the part where I'd want to simply wander.

I can picture winding roads bordered by stone walls, fields stretching out toward the horizon, little villages that seem to appear around a bend, and that particular kind of green that photographs never quite seem to capture properly.

And, naturally, I would want to see some of the famous places.

I would absolutely visit castles and historic sites. I would want to hear the stories behind them, walk through old rooms, and stand in places that have been part of the landscape for centuries.

But I think I'd be just as excited about the places that weren't on my original plan.

Small stone church on green coastal cliffs with ocean foreground and a flat-topped mountain in the background.

A little village I happened to drive through.

A bookshop I noticed while wandering down a side street.

A café with a window seat that looked far too inviting to walk past.

A bakery where I had no idea what I was ordering but decided to try something anyway.

Those are the kinds of travel memories I tend to imagine when I picture this trip.

Not necessarily the things everyone tells you that you have to see, but the little discoveries that become yours because you weren't looking for them.

The Kind of Place Where I'd Lose Track of Time

I think I'd want at least a few days in Ireland where the only real plan was to explore.

I'd wake up, look at the map, pick a direction, and go.

Maybe I'd have a destination in mind, but I'd leave enough room to change my mind along the way.

If a little town looked interesting, I'd stop.

If there was a walking trail, I'd follow it.

If I saw a bookstore, I would obviously have to investigate. This is a bookish trip, after all. I'm not going to pretend I have the self-control to walk past a bookstore just because it wasn't on the itinerary.

And if I found a café with a cozy corner and a good view?

Well, that's probably where the rest of the afternoon would go.

I can already imagine sitting at a little table with a cup of tea, something sweet beside me, and a book open in front of me while I watch people come and go outside.

There is something about reading while travelling that feels different from reading at home.

Maybe it's because the surroundings become part of the memory.

Years later, I might not remember exactly what chapter I was reading that afternoon. But I might remember the rain on the window, the sound of dishes being moved behind the counter, the colour of the walls, or the view outside.

The book and the place become connected.

And suddenly, opening that book again at home brings a tiny piece of the trip back with it.

I Want the Countryside, Too

One of the things I think I'd love most about Ireland is getting away from the idea that every day needs a major destination.

Give me a quiet stretch of countryside and a road that doesn't seem particularly important.

Give me somewhere I can stop and take photographs without needing to explain why.

Give me a walking path where the biggest decision of the afternoon is whether to keep going or turn around.

I don't need every moment to be spectacular.

In fact, I think I'd be happier if most of them weren't.

There's something comforting about ordinary beauty.

A stone wall covered in moss.

Sheep in a field.

A row of colourful houses.

Flowers growing somewhere they probably weren't planted intentionally.

Colorful row houses in front of a tall Gothic cathedral by the sea under a blue, cloudy sky.

The sky changing while you're driving.

A little church or old building that you almost missed because you were looking somewhere else.

Those are the things that make a place feel lived in.

And I think that's what I'd want from this trip.

Not to experience Ireland as a tourist rushing from one famous attraction to another, but to experience it as someone who has been given the rare luxury of time.

Time to look around.

Time to stop.

Time to get a little lost.

And Maybe a Little Rain

Let's be realistic.

If I'm travelling through Ireland, Scotland, and the UK, I am absolutely going to encounter rain.

Probably a lot of it.

And I'm okay with that.

Actually, I think I'd be disappointed if the entire trip were perfectly sunny.

There's something about a rainy day in an old village that fits the whole fantasy.

I'd find a café, shake the rain off my jacket, order something warm, and settle into a corner with my book.

Maybe I'd watch the rain for a while before reading.

Maybe I'd spend far longer there than I intended.

Maybe I'd eventually decide that the rain had given me the perfect excuse to cancel whatever vague plan I'd made for the afternoon.

That's the kind of flexibility I want this trip to have.

I don't want to spend the entire time trying to make the weather cooperate with me.

I want to let the weather become part of the story.

Because if I'm lucky enough to finally make this dream trip happen, I don't want to come home remembering only the days when everything went according to plan.

I want to remember the rainy café.

The unexpected detour.

The little village I hadn't heard of before.

The book I bought because the cover caught my attention.

The afternoon when I had nowhere to be and nowhere I needed to go.

Those are the memories that make a trip feel like it was actually lived rather than simply completed.

England: Bookshops, Literary History, and the Feeling of Being Somewhere I've Read About

And then there would be England.

If Scotland is where I imagine myself falling in love with the landscape and Ireland is where I'd happily get a little lost, England is where I suspect my inner bookworm would completely take over.

Because how could I travel through England on a dream bookish trip and not spend an unreasonable amount of time in bookstores?

I don't mean walking into one famous shop, taking a photograph, buying a tote bag, and moving on to the next attraction.

I mean actually browsing.

The kind of browsing where you tell yourself you'll only be there for twenty minutes and then look at the clock an hour later and wonder how that happened.

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben beside Westminster Bridge over the Thames, with a red bus and Union Jack under a blue sky.

I'd want independent bookshops tucked into old buildings. I'd want narrow aisles and shelves that aren't perfectly organized. I'd want to discover books I hadn't heard of before simply because a cover caught my eye or because a bookseller had left a handwritten recommendation nearby.

And, naturally, I'd want to leave with a book.

Probably several.

Let's be honest: if I came home from a trip like this without a ridiculous number of new books, I'd have some serious explaining to do.

The Bookshops Would Be Part of the Journey

One of my favourite ideas for this trip is that the bookstores wouldn't just be places I visited.

They'd become part of the journey itself.

Maybe I'd pick up a novel in London and read part of it on the train to the countryside.

Maybe I'd find a historical romance in a little shop in Bath and carry it around for the rest of the day.

Maybe I'd buy a book simply because it was set somewhere I'd just visited.

I love the idea of building a tiny travel library as I go.

Not a carefully curated collection chosen months in advance, but a shelf of books that would each have a story attached to them.

I found this one in Scotland.

This one came from a rainy afternoon in Ireland.

I bought this after wandering through a little English village.

This was the book I found when I had absolutely no intention of buying another book.

Those little stories would become part of the books themselves.

And I think that is one of the reasons physical books mean so much to me.

A book can hold more than its story.

It can hold a memory.

Following the Footsteps of Literary History

Of course, I couldn't go to England without indulging in some literary history.

I'd want to visit places connected to authors and stories I've loved, especially the ones that have shaped the way I imagine the English countryside.

Jane Austen would absolutely have a place somewhere in this trip.

There is something particularly appealing about seeing the landscapes that inspired the world of her novels. Not because I expect to suddenly find myself in the middle of Pride and Prejudice, but because I want to understand how those places might have influenced the stories.

I'd want to visit historic houses, gardens, libraries, and towns with literary connections.

I'd want to stand somewhere beautiful and think about how many people before me had stood in that same place and imagined stories of their own.

And I think I'd probably have one of those slightly ridiculous reader moments where I recognize something from a book or an adaptation and get far more excited about it than the situation probably warrants.

That's part of the fun.

Travel doesn't have to be serious all the time.

Sometimes it's perfectly acceptable to stand somewhere and think, Oh my goodness, this looks exactly like something I've read.

The Dream of a Slow English Afternoon

But even with all the bookstores and literary places I'd want to visit, I still wouldn't want England to become a checklist.

Sunny view of a medieval stone castle above a river, with an arched bridge and a white sailboat drifting below.

I'd want slow afternoons.

I'd want to wander through a village without a specific destination.

I'd want to sit in a café with tea and a book.

I'd want to find a bench somewhere beautiful and read for a while.

I'd want to explore an old market, browse little shops, and stop for something sweet when I felt like it.

Maybe I'd spend an afternoon somewhere that had absolutely nothing to do with books and somehow end up having one of my favourite days of the whole trip.

Because I think that's the secret to the kind of travel I actually want.

The destination matters.

But the pace matters just as much.

I don't want to spend the entire trip thinking about where I need to be next.

I want to be able to look up from my book and realize that the afternoon has disappeared.

And Somewhere Along the Way, I'd Probably Buy One More Book

There is a joke I can already imagine making about this trip.

I'd leave Canada insisting that I'm going to be sensible.

I'll bring only a few books.

I'll buy one or two while I'm away.

I'll be responsible about luggage.

And then, somewhere along the way, I'll find a bookstore.

Maybe it'll be tiny.

Maybe it'll be beautiful.

Maybe it'll have exactly the kind of old, slightly worn editions that are impossible to walk away from.

And suddenly my carefully planned luggage situation will become someone else's problem.

But honestly?

I think I'd be okay with that.

Because when I picture coming home from this trip, I don't just picture photographs on my phone.

I picture books on my shelf that I can pick up years later and immediately remember where I was when I bought them.

That's the kind of souvenir I want.

Something small enough to bring home, but meaningful enough to take me right back.

Maybe That's What Makes a Trip Bookish

I've been calling this my dream bookish trip, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that it isn't really about how many bookstores I visit or how many literary landmarks I manage to see.

It's about the way I want to experience the trip.

I want to notice things.

I want to read.

I want to wander.

I want to be curious.

I want to take photographs because something is beautiful, not because I need proof that I completed an attraction.

I want to let a place surprise me.

And I want to give myself enough time that I can actually remember what it felt like to be there.

Maybe that's what being bookish while travelling really means to me.

It's not necessarily finding a book-related activity in every destination.

It's seeing the world with the same curiosity that makes me turn the page of a new story and wonder what comes next.

Maybe the Best Trips Start as Daydreams

When I picture this trip, I don't actually picture myself coming home with an enormous collection of souvenirs.

I'm sure there would be a few.

A book from a little independent shop in England. A bookmark from somewhere I wandered into on a rainy afternoon. Maybe a small piece of something that caught my eye because it reminded me of a particular day.

But those wouldn't be the things I'd treasure most.

I'd want the photographs.

The slightly blurry ones taken through a rainy window. The ones of the Scottish loch that I took from five different angles because I couldn't decide which view was best. The castle that looked even more impressive in person. The tiny café where I spent far longer than I intended. The countryside road that wasn't on any itinerary but somehow became one of my favourite parts of the trip.

I'd want the stories behind the photographs even more.

I'd want to remember getting a little lost and discovering somewhere I never would have found if I'd stuck to the plan. I'd want to remember the book I picked up simply because I liked the cover. I'd want to remember what I was reading beside that loch and what the weather felt like that afternoon.

I'd want to come home with memories that could be pulled back out years later, almost like favourite books on a shelf.

Maybe that's why this particular trip feels so special to me.

It isn't really about visiting Ireland, Scotland, and England.

It isn't about seeing every castle, finding every famous bookstore, or taking enough photographs to prove that I went.

It's about experiencing these places slowly enough that they become part of my own story.

I think that's what I've always loved about books, too.

A good story doesn't just give you somewhere to go for a few hours. Sometimes it leaves something behind. A character you still think about. A place you suddenly want to see for yourself. A historical period that makes you curious. A feeling you can't quite explain but know you want to experience again.

And sometimes, those little pieces of stories follow us into real life.

Maybe that's what happened here.

Somewhere along the way, all those castles and countryside landscapes and little bookshops I encountered through stories became part of a dream I could imagine for myself.

I don't know when—or if—I will ever take this exact trip.

Maybe one day I'll be standing beside a Scottish loch with a book in my hands and realize that the daydream finally became real.

Maybe I'll be older than I imagined I'd be when I got there.

Maybe I'll have someone beside me, or maybe I'll have finally taken the solo trip I've always thought might suit me best.

Maybe the route will look completely different.

And that's okay.

Because I've learned that a dream doesn't have to come with a booking confirmation to be meaningful.

Sometimes it's enough to know there's a place you'd love to see.

Sometimes it's enough to save a photograph, add a destination to a list, tuck a few dollars away, or read another book that makes you want to go somewhere you've never been.

Dreams can take their time.

And perhaps that's especially fitting for a birthday.

Every birthday is another reminder that life doesn't always unfold according to the timeline we imagined. Some things happen early. Some take longer. Some arrive in completely unexpected ways.

And some dreams simply wait for us.

I think this one can wait.

For now, I can keep reading the books that make me want to go there. I can keep collecting photographs and stories from other people's journeys. I can keep imagining what it would feel like to wake up in a stone cottage, wander through an old castle, find a little bookshop, and spend an afternoon beside a Scottish loch with nowhere else to be.

And maybe, someday, I'll get to turn the page and find myself there.

Where Would Your Dream Bookish Trip Take You?

Now I'm curious about yours.

If you could gift yourself one unforgettable bookish journey—money, time, and logistics temporarily ignored—where would you go?

Would you wander through the English countryside? Chase castles through Scotland? Get lost on the winding roads of Ireland? Spend a week exploring bookstores across Europe? Or would your dream bookish escape take you somewhere completely different?

Tell me in the comments: where would you go, and what is the one thing you'd absolutely have to experience while you were there?

Because I have a feeling we're all carrying around a few destinations that have been quietly waiting for their turn.

May your heart stay warm, your pages stay full, and I’ll meet you in the next chapter.